Trafalgar - By Angelica Gorodischer

MEDRANO, TRAFALGAR: Born in Rosario, 2 October, 1936. Only child of Doctor Juan José Medrano Sales, the city’s eminent clinician, who was chaired professor of Physiology in the College of Medical Sciences of the Universidad Nacional del Litoral and president of the Medical Society of Rosario, and his wife, Doña Mercedes Lucía Herrera Stone. He received his primary and secondary education at the Marist Brothers’ school. His parents hoped he would study medicine, but after a brief incursion into the university cloisters, the young Medrano chose to dedicate himself to commerce, an activity for which he undoubtedly possessed uncommon gifts, and from which he obtained great satisfaction, not solely in financial terms. The tragic deaths of Dr. Medrano Salles and Doña Mercedes Herrera in an automobile accident will be remembered. At that time (1966), Trafalgar Medrano was thirty years old, he had consolidated the commercial contacts established some time before, and his position in the world of business could be classified as brilliant. Outside of the expansion, perhaps unprecedented, of his business activity, his life is without—as he never ceases to remark—notable occurrences. He is single. He lives in the large home that belonged to his parents, in a residential neighborhood to the north of the city of Rosario, a big house, a little antiquated but which he refuses to modify, aside from having it painted every two years, and which during his repeated and sometimes extended absences is left in the care of his faithful servants Don Rogelio Bellevigne and Doña Crisóstoma Ríos de Bellevigne. His offices operate in the building located at 1253 Córdoba Street, attended amiably and efficiently these last twenty years (when they moved from those on the top floor in the 700 block of Mitre) by doña Elvira Suárez de Romegiali and the accountant Servidio Cicchetti. He is a member of the Rosario Pelota Club, the Jockey Club, of The Circle, of the Argentine Academy of Lunfardo. At the death of his parents, he donated Dr. Medrano’s scientific library to the Medical Society of Rosario. He possesses, however, a very rich and varied library composed of works of narrative, detective stories, and science fiction, whose volumes in some cases originate in unexpected places. He displays extremely simple tastes: fine cuisine, without excesses; fine wines, even more sparingly; cats, music, black coffee, cigarettes, reading (Balzac, Cervantes, Vian, Le Guin, Lafferty, Villon, Borges, Euripides, Métal Hurlant, Corto Maltés, to cite only a few of his favorites); the company of friends, among whom he names with particular affection Ciro Vázquez Leiva; Dr. Hermenegildo Flynn, physician; Sujer and Angélica Gorodischer; Dr. Nicolás Rubino, attorney; Dr. Simeón Páez, also attorney; Miguel Ángel Sánchez; Roberto Brebbia; Carlos Castro; and distinguished poets such as Jorge Isaías, Mirta Rosenberg, Francisco Gandolfo, et cetera. He owns a number of notable works by the visual artists of Rosario, who also figure among his friends. One can admire in his home pictures by Luis Ouvrard, Gustavo Cochet, Juan Grela, Pedro Giacaglia, Hugo Padeletti, Leónidas Gambartes, Francisco García Carrera, Juan Pablo Renzi, Manuel Musto, Augusto Schiavoni, et cetera, and a very beautiful sculpture by Lucio Fontana, the Smiling Girl. He habitually frequents the Burgundy, the well-known establishment that has seen pass through its premises in the 1100 block of Córdoba so many of the city’s leading personalities, and he collects gramophone records with recordings of tangos by his favorite orchestras.

(Who’s Who in Rosario. Edited by the Subcommittee for Public Relations of the Association of Friends of the City of Rosario. Rosario: La Familia Press, 1977.)

From here on, dear reader, kind reader, even before you begin to read this book, I must ask you a favor: do not go straight to the index to look for the shortest story or the one that has a title that catches your attention. Since you are going to read them, for which I thank you, read them in order. Not because they follow chronologically, though there is something of that, but because that way you and I will understand each other more easily.

Thank you.

A.G.

By the Light of the Chaste Electronic Moon

I was with Trafalgar Medrano yesterday. It’s not easy to find him. He’s always going here and there with that import-export business of his. But now and then he goes from there to here and he likes to sit down and drink coffee and chat with a friend. I was in the Burgundy and when I saw him come in, I almost didn’t recognize him: he had shaved off his mustache.

The Burgundy